A Star Reborn: The Queen’s Return

It was definitely a cult.

Bai Murong swept a glance across the intoxicated audience and truly believed that if Xia Ling said “All of you are to hand me every cent you have now,” they would actually follow her orders without hesitation.

He decided. He was going to do society justice!

“I have an idea…” Bai Murong smiled deviously. “The best way to deal with her is to give her a taste of her own medicine. We can do what she did to Xia Yu. In the last round, when she’s close to victory, we’ll give her a super-super-superstar that would bring her down in the final round, making all her previous wins completely useless.”

“Wow, sounds evil.”

“Hey, is that even your junior you’re talking about.”

“Brother Murong, are you in love with Li Lei or with Pei Ziheng, why do you have such hatred towards Ye Xingling?”

“Shush, you, I’m being serious.” Bai Murong said. “This girl is too young. She’ll be too complacent if she wins this so easily. I have her interests at heart and am just trying to put her in her place so she won’t be too overconfident.” This sounded pretty reasonable, so no one interrupted him.

“But,” one of the celebrities said. “if we suddenly get someone to challenge her in the final round, the fans will just think we’re sly and mean. If we win, it’ll be inglorious. And if we lose, it’ll be downright humiliating.”

Most of them nodded their heads in agreement.

They were all singers who had made a name for themselves a long time back. If they challenged a young girl like Ye Xingling now, they would just appear to be bullying her. What made it even worse was that nobody was certain they could beat her.

“Look at you people, lacking the guts to do this,” Bai Murong said. “Don’t you want to feel her stage presence first-hand? I have an idea. You can tell the emcee to modify the rules a little bit and change it to a duet-style challenge instead. Not only will this come off as less competitive, but you could also say something about helping the next generation of singers out and, at the same time, experience her prowess first-hand.”

This did not subject anyone to embarrassment, and at the same time, achieved their goal.

Indeed, they were curious as to just how well Xia Ling could lead the audience along with her influence. Just observing it alone was not enough, one had to truly experience it for himself to know it. The same way Bai Murong did when he performed “Powerful Opponent” with her onstage.

“On that note, how did you feel the last time when you sang ‘Powerful Opponent’?” Somebody asked out of curiosity.

Bai Murong narrowed his eyes slightly. “This little girl is pretty strong, I have to admit. If I made even the slightest mistake, I would’ve been overshadowed by her.” Since someone had already exposed him earlier, so he didn’t bother lying through his teeth. “But fortunately, I was strong enough to maintain my strength and presence. This girl is a little inexperienced, she’s not my match.”

His last statement had some of them nodding their heads.

Most of them had watched the video of their performance for “Powerful Opponent” and could tell that, although Ye Xingling seemed to be attempting to overshadow Bai Murong at some point, he managed to perform to his potential without much of inhibition towards the end of the song. They felt more relieved now. It seemed like this little girl was still a notch below Bai Murong and wasn’t as scary as they had thought earlier on. In fact, she might not even be able to beat them.

But what they did not know was that Xia Ling wasn’t even singing to the best of her ability when she performed with Bai Murong. She was just trying to bring out the best in Bai Murong, and when his performance improved, she modestly held back her best skills.

Bai Murong was the only one to have guessed her intentions, and hence, wanted to get somebody else to test the waters so he could see just how good Xia Ling could be. He had planned this all along, and nobody saw through him.

They were very much on his side. “This is a good idea, we can take this opportunity to see just how good she is.” They were excited to watch how the up-and-coming star of this generation was going to perform and find out how good her singing actually was.

Bai Murong’s smile was as sly as a fox’s. “Who’s up for it?”

“Murong had his turn, let’s exclude him. For the rest of us, shall we just take a random draw?”

Hence, the few of them huddled together excitedly and took a draw. They decided on one person in no time.

It was Qin Zifeng, a very popular, good-looking male singer who stood at 1.8 meters tall. He called his manager over and talked to him briefly.

The manager considered for a bit and thought it was a feasible idea. He went over to communicate this to the organizer of this head-to-head competition.

Xia Ling had just finished singing “Glass Fingertips” and her 19th consecutive win.

“19 consecutive wins!”

“19 consecutive wins!”

Cheers reverberated.

This was the first time in the history of the Heavenly Voice Music Festival that a singer managed to win every single round from start to finish, clinching the final title.

“Ye Xingling! Ye Xingling! Ye Xingling, we love you!” Countless fans screamed at the top of their lungs.

The emcee walked onstage all smiles. “Our Xiao Ling is really amazing, being able to win so many consecutive rounds without the use of a recording or lip-syncing.” Xia Ling definitely did not lip-sync for this competition. Not only did she change her tempo spontaneously and deliver a completely different version from the original album, the way she moved around onstage made it impossible for her to cheat. There were two stages at the site, and she had to alternate between both spaces over the 19 rounds. It was practically impossible to use recordings for such a scenario.

The crowd cheered even louder upon hearing what the emcee said.

“Final winner!”

“Final winner!”

“Champion!”

“Champion!”

Everyone was soaking in exuberance.

“But,” the emcee started. “this isn’t considered the final victory.”

This statement had everyone stunned. Xia Ling was confused too, was that not the final round? Didn’t she already beat every contestant? There were 19 rounds, just like the last time. Unless… there was some kind of trick? She tilted her head slightly with a look of confusion.

The emcee smilingly said, “Actually, a lot of megastars and other amazing singers have had their eyes on this head-to-head battle. In fact, we’ve just got a memo from one of them saying that he wishes to share a stage with you in the final round. Both of you will sing a duet, and then we’ll determine the final winner.”

Xia Ling was completely puzzled. Which megastar was being so absurd?

“I wonder if Xiao Ling is agreeable to it?” The emcee said. “He also said that if you win, he has a gift for you.”

Xia Ling wasn’t the least bit interested in the gift, but she was very curious about who that could be. Anyone who was at the standard of a megastar should be able to tell that she was exceptional in this field. If that was the case, was he really not afraid of being humiliated in front of such a crowd, or was he simply confident of winning?